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At SIA, I got cornered by the inventor and marketing director of his new 'Super Hydrophobic Ski Wax', Sski wax and received a sample which I've messed with a little. (Check out the Wiki 'someone' produced on ther inventor and background in lubricants and a Rutgers test compared to Swix.)

I tried it on one of my alpine skis over freshly waxed, scraped and brushed bases. I did not feel any difference between the skis on dryer packed powder. I then waxed one skate ski with Hot LF over older Med LF and the other with Sski wax. After a 10k on melting corn on crust, where I switched feet with the skis to prevent 'bias' I 'think' I felt a little less glide with this stuff, but it's highly subjective.

I then removed/reduced the wax on one ski with base cleaner and applied Sski wax and Med LF to the other and then missed a golden opportunity to again ski on corn & crust yesterday. Maybe today, I'll get a few laps in.

Question: your basic believe in the potential of this stuff and other 'objective' tests to mess around with. It's hard to tell if it simply is wearing off and I'm on the same wax on both skis.

Test? I'm considering contacting the producers and obtaining samples to see what a larger group of nordic and alpine skiers think, like what I did with Maplus products. My take is it's a rec level. easy application 'wax' with unknown durability, but it'd be interesting to see what others have experienced.

Has anyone else tried this stuff?

My experience with PTFE is limited, but it's cheap and if it worked well, I'd think lots of wax companies would be using it.

I was given a sample of Dragon Wax (you may have heard of it). I'm pretty sure it's a PTFE wax, and my impression was that the skis felt velvety smooth, but the skis were not fast. I seem to remember that PTFE does well on old warm snow, but those are easy conditions for fast skis.

Jay

Wait, what? Aren't all "pure fluoros" poly(tetrafluoroethylene) of various weights? And the fluorocarbons are block copolymers of PTFE and hydrocarbon oligomers.

I have a couple of jars of 3M liquid fluorocarbons in the lab. I might have to try one out on my ski bases. Probably will come off fast due to being liquid, but it would be fun to goof off with.